The meeting was called to order at 3:05 p.m. It was moved and seconded to approve
the minutes of October 8, 2007, and the motion passed unanimously.

Chris McCord, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Jamie Rothstein,
Assistant to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Eliakim Katz,
Chair of the Department of Economics; Ardeshir Dalal, Director of Graduate Studies
in the Department of Economics; and Stephen Karlson, Director of the Office
of Economic Education were introduced.

McCord provided some introductory remarks regarding the Department of Economics.
The Department of Economics offers undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral
degrees; provides service to the general education program; and houses the Office
of Economic Education. The enrollments dropped a decade ago or so and now we
have seen them rebuild quit significantly. The undergraduate enrollment has
doubled. The Department of Economics is doing more with less, and the research
mission is steadily evolving and refocusing. The master’s program is very
vibrant. At the undergraduate level the department is doing a good job to ensure
a quality degree, and it pays attention to written and quantitative skills.

Marsh presented the subcommittee report for the Department of Economics. The
new faculty hires should be reflected in the report. The subcommittee noted
the increased emphasis on writing skills and encourages the department to think
about assessing these skills. In the report the department talks about using
interviews to collect assessment data, and the subcommittee noted some opportunities
for broadening the sample. The number of women in the undergraduate program
has declined.

The learning objectives for the M.A. in Economics are very clear. The subcommittee
had a question about whether the enrollment was declining or stable. At all
levels the department is handicapped because it was hard to track where their
students went when they left the university. When students are admitted into
the program, they can be admitted into the master’s or the Ph.D. program.
Some students start out in the Ph.D. program and after a period of time they
want to pick up a degree so they switch into the master’s program. After
receiving the master’s degree, these students switch back into the Ph.D.
program. Other students start out as master’s students, and after a year
or so they decide that they want to continue on into the Ph.D. program. This
transition is seamless for the students. When it comes to saying how many students
are in the master’s program and how many students are in the Ph.D. program,
this is a little fuzzy. Apart from record keeping requirements, this process
works pretty well for the doctoral program. On the average, can you tell us
how many Ph.D.s you are producing? Some Ph.D. students are getting job offers
after they have finished the master’s program. Having the master’s
degree in hand opens up doors for these students, and many students don’t
want to work in academia. Over the last five years the department has produced
three to four Ph.D. graduates per year. For the timeframe 2000-2006, the department
produced 14 Ph.D. graduates. In FY07, there were three Ph.D. graduates, and
we have another student scheduled to defend the dissertation later this semester.
There was a period of time where students were taking a long time to complete
the degree for a variety of reasons. This has been addressed, and now we are
probably close to Iowa State University in regard to time-to-degree. There are
125 Ph.D. programs in economics in this country; what is the average graduation
rate? We have compared productivity of our department with the average of some
other institutions, and in some cases we do better than them and in other cases
we do not do better than them. Southern Illinois University (SIU) is among the
best. SIU has the same faculty size as NIU, but it produces twice as many Ph.D.
graduates. The doctoral program may be a victim of our own quality. If ABDs
can get a job, they tend to take the job and not finish the degree. The department
doesn’t know what SIU is doing. Is it our business to know? It is our
business to do the best we can with what we have. Our location may be mitigating
against us too. Then the question may be do we continue our Ph.D. program or
should we put these resources into the master’s program. The department
has looked at other Ph.D. programs, and a large number of those programs have
one individual who serves in an endowed chair position and devotes the majority
of time to overseeing dissertation students. This department does not have an
individual who can devote the majority of time to this endeavor. If the department
had more resources, then it could do more. SIU has more resources to do some
of these things, and it is also reflected in the release time given to faculty.
We have also lost Ph.D. students when we lost a couple of our faculty members.

Reynolds took over the presentation of the subcommittee report. The report
was very informative and analytical. There was a disparity of the lack of women
in the undergraduate program, but the number of women at the graduate level
was very strong. In response to this observation, it was noted that the economics
program has become one of the safety measures for students who don’t make
it into the College of Business, and it might be worthwhile to look at the College
of Business data, especially the male students. Over the past couple of years
there have only been seven native students per year who have switched from the
College of Business to the Department of Economics. The university does not
know whether transfer students are migrating to your program. It does not appear
that your enrollment increase is coming from students who were in the College
of Business. Does the department have specific recruitment activities in place?
The department does not advertise, but it does participate in the Majors Fairs.
Many of our students choose this major after completing an introductory course
in economics.

There is a problem with the low number of respondents to the alumni survey,
which is not unique to this department. Some departments have moved toward exit
interview with seniors.

The report has a sentence in it about the quality of the doctoral dissertations.
Six or seven dissertations were sent out for external review, and two or three
of these had some issues or weaknesses mentioned in the reviews. The department
should look at this information and share it with the faculty advisors.

In regard to faculty productivity, the department felt it was performing at
the national average level; some disagreement with this statement was expressed.
Data regarding this issue has been forwarded to the department. One concern
is about the number of Ph.D.s being produced by the department. The department
needs to figure out what the issues are that contribute to the low number of
graduates (i.e., time-to-degree, stipends, etc.). Adjustments should be made
that allow the department to produce more Ph.D. graduates if that is the goal
of the department. This also relates back to the resource issue. The applied
areas currently offered are public economics, labor economics, and financial
economics. These are of particular interest to the Illinois region. It is difficult
to change the curriculum in a timely manner, especially when there are no new
resources. Some students want to specialize in other areas that we don’t
offer. One such area is international economics, and we don’t have the
resource to offer this. There are also many courses in the catalog that are
not offered on a regular basis, but we do tell students that these are the fields
that we offer. Some students get a master’s and then leave NIU to pursue
a Ph.D. at other institutions if they are interested in economic development
and international economics. This information will be in the plans for future
section of the review, but we need additional faculty to offer additional areas.
The dean has been discussing this issue with the chair. Also, NIU is beginning
to move into the next phase of the strategic planning process, and this will
drive resource allocations and hiring decisions. This is in the queue, and we
will have to determine where it is in the queue. Sometimes a shift in curriculum
occurs as a result of key retirements or individuals accepting other positions.
Has the department had discussions about substituting one area for another or
adding this area? Currently the department has had to recruit in the three areas,
but we would be happy to change this. If we don’t increase the number
of faculty, a substitution could occur. A shift in curriculum does not necessarily
require new positions. These kinds of evolutions move very slowly. The department
is providing initial training to graduate students, and then these students
are going somewhere else. We need to make changes to keep the students at NIU.
Eight years ago we started to phase out the urban/regional economics area, and
this has just been finished. When students find out that you are changing things,
some students want to leave.

Does the public economics area overlap with economic development? Public economics
is about how the economy in the U.S. relates to the role of government regulating
the economy. Economic development is associated with the problems of developing
countries. There is almost always an overlap, but it doesn’t hone in on
the major issues.

The Office of Economic Education is part of the department and affiliated with
NIU Outreach. The current activity level of the office is minimal, essentially
consisting of judging a poster contest. Priorities in the K-12 audience have
shifted due to the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act. In the spring, the
APC should discuss reviewing an activity that takes up 10 percent of one faculty
member’s time with an $800 budget. This office does have a CIPs code,
and we have to report on it to the IBHE. The report is self explanatory. Activities
have been cut back extensively, and the external agency has gone in other directions
due to the No Child Left Behind Act. The department’s strength in quantitative
economics might lead to the possibility of exploiting the No Child Left Behind
mathematics push as a funding opportunity. The subcommittee had a hard time
understanding the viability of this office. It is a one person office, run by
a faculty member doing several jobs, and the faculty member doesn’t have
time to pursue other funding opportunities that are available. The office does
have the assistance of the Illinois Council on Economic Education, which is
part of NIU Outreach. There are also several full-time teachers who are involved
with the activities of the office. The office primarily exists to offer college
credit for certain activities, and then we have the poster contest too. Another
activity that we are involved with is the stock market game for teachers. The
question is does this warrant a separate office, or can someone in the Illinois
Council of Economic Education organization provide this support. The original
agreement for the office was set up by Fred Kitterle and Tony Scaperlanda many
years ago. The council thought it would be useful to have some presence in the
department. The office is doing something useful for outreach. There should
be a conversation with the office and the council to follow-up on this issue.